Authors: Jack Womack
"Stop hurting me," I said; the patrolman searched places
he'd searched twice before, seeming unwilling to stop, having started. I eyed leftward; saw the fat one bodypunching E,
giggling after each slap.
"We're just searchin' you, ma'am," said the patrolman.
"We never hurt anybody doesn't bring it on themselves."
"Hell of a mess you left back there at the restaurant, lady,"
said the senior officer. "You know who found the bodies?"
He held my chin in his hand as if it were an egg as he lifted
up my head; after a moment's stare he slapped me so hard
that I blinked one of my lenses out. "You want to know?"
"Who-?"
"Their wives found them," he said, pinching my mouth
open; trying to spit on him, I only wet my lips. "They
brought their children by after Sunday school to see their
daddies at work. You know what they saw?"
"Stop-"
I thought I felt my teeth loosen as he tensed his grip;
nerveache ripped through my cheeks, and I shook free of his
hold long enough to keep from fainting. "Weren't both your
eyes blue a minute ago?" he asked.
"What-?" asked the patrolman pinning me.
"I'll be damned," said the senior officer. "Her eyes. One's
brown and one's blue. Look at this."
The patrolman turned me around and perched me hoodways. "Something's funny here," he said, putting his face
close to mine. "Look at her features."
"What are you talking about?"
The patrolman touched his thumb against the tip of my
nose, tapping it; pressing against it, spilled more of my
blood. "Feels like split cartilage," he said. "She coulda dyed
her hair. Looks like it's been straightened, you ask me-"
"You people see darkies under every bed-" said the senior officer.
"That's our job. Looks like we got ourselves an albino
here tryin' to pass-"
"Bob, " said the senior officer. "What the hell you doing
back there?"
"Blood'11 tell-" said the patrolman. His face hung over
me, washed pinkish gray in the searchlight; in the next second it reddened, and was gone. Shutting my eyes against the
spray, I heard the blast; as I reopened them I saw the man
slumping, tumbling groundways. I leapt off the hood; saw
the fat one staring into the glare, stumbling sidelong toward
me. "Valentine Almighty-" I heard him say; when I circled
to see where he looked, I saw the senior officer firing his
rifle, blasting my husband at midchest as he emerged from
the light; he lifted airways, his flight reversed, and glided
back to earth with a skid and a roll.
"Sonofabitch, " the senior officer said, running to where
my husband lay waiting. He acted before I had time to worry;
as my torturer neared John's legs my husband slapped his
thigh, releasing a spring he'd once demonstrated for me.
His limb shot up, impaling the officer's groin, flinging him
forward. John reached up and seized the man's shoulders as
he sailed over; slammed him headfirst into the ground.
"Isabel," John said as he stood, nodding toward the fat
patrolman. "Take him."
I knelt down to seize his late companion's unused truncheon; as at the restaurant, I viewed what ensued as if from
above. The fat one brought up his pistol, readying to shoot
my husband; I swung twohanded, catching his nose. He
dropped, and I hit him again; once he'd grounded I flailed
away, letting my mind go, responding as I'd learned to do
years before when I roamed Washington Heights with Judy,
exing our tormentors before they might hurt us again.
When at last I quieted I stared at the remnants of the fat
patrolman's head, realizant I'd known deeper pain the night
I'd killed the mouse in our apartment. When I felt my husband's heartpound as he embraced me and allowed the truncheon to slip from my hand, I was awared unto endtime
that as my own chosen regooding had utterly failed, there
was no reason to mourn that John's, enforced by others and
not by himself, should not have been any more longlasting.
"Love," my husband said, wrapping around me with inordinate, if desired, force, evincing sans words a belief that
were we to impress together close enough we might at
length meld our physicalities, if never more our emotions
after this moment. "Love you, Iz. I love you. I worried-"
"Godness, no-" My eyes flooded, and the flow was such
I thought I'd never stop crying again. Tears washed away the
blood; staring at my husband's face, ashine in the policelights as if it threw heat, I saw I'd reddened him with my new
lipstick. Drawing away for a moment, taking deeper breaths,
I more closely eyed the ragged hole blown through his
clothes; his wound was large enough that I could see myself
reflected in the crumpled Krylar beneath his skin.
"You see, Iz," John said, cradling me. "We unisoned.
Simulcast action, simulcast thought." He shook bodywide,
as if with malaria. "Oh Iz, we're renewed. I love you-"
"I'm no killer," I said. "I'm not-"
"You are," he said, kissing me with youth's passion, reading his own exuberance into me. "When I saw you act I knew
our world as ours again. I love you," he whispered. "Let's
love our life. We're renewed, Iz. We've successed."
"Are we?" I asked, thinking of E. "He's been bloodied.
Let's retrieve."
"He's moving." E lay fetuscurled alongside the Mississippi
patrolmen's car, chanting a murmur underbreath, lowvoicing his mutterances until it was unguessable whether he
actually phrased words. Shock's opiates dulled me; I loosed
myself from my husband's grip, so that we could recover our
charge.
"He's traumaed," I said. "Let's take him and go."
"They hurt you, Iz?"
"Yes," I said, staring at the bodies we'd left. "You're hurt,
too."
"Fleshwound." John stared at me as I attempted to pull
my dress's torn fabric across my breasts. "Who ripped your
clothes?"
I hesitated before answering, weighting us everafter with
that instant's thoughtless pause. John compressed his smile,
hiding his lips, and stared at E with a look such as he'd never
allowed me to see on his face before.
"What was done?"
"We were in the woods," I said. "That's where I disarmed-"
"He assaulted-?"
"No, John-" I said, but his reflexes had already tripped.
"Wait!" Before I could move to forestall him he'd reached E,
lifting him from the grass one-handed and throwing him,
still cuffed, onto the hood of the car. E catatonicked, allaying all movement and word, allowing my husband to prop
him upright and do as desired. "Stop!"
"You raped her!" John screamed as he beat E, landing jab
after jab. E's face convexed on one side, concaved on the
other; his eyes were blackened, and closed so tightly as clamshells. My husband continued hitting E, pacing himself at
one blow per second. "Detail sins. Detail!"
"You're killing him!" I shouted, slappingJohn's back with
my own fists, trying sans success to disrupt his rhythm.
"Known." John noosed E with his hands, throttling him
before smashing him through the windshield. "Why'd you
rape her?" he said, pounding E's face into the glass. "Why?
Why? Why-?"
` John!" E's blood drained, matting his hair, reddening his
face and clothing. His jaw had was so swollen I couldn't tell
how badly it had been shattered. He no longer appeared
human.
"Why?" Again, I let slip my own controls; still beset by
anger earlier felt toward E and the policemen, bilefull with rage long abuilding toward my husband, I swung as if to
hurt all who'd ever hurt me, fisting John's cheekbone, hurting my hand, knocking him back from the car. He let go of
E as he footed his balance, trying not to fall; my action
effected so well as a torrent of cold water. As he calmed he
reimpressed as my preferred husband again.
"Iz," he said, gasping. "You hit me."
"Your attack's unwarranted," I said. "He didn't rape. He
attempted and failed. I prevented attack."
"He tried-"
"And I prevented. We've suffered all this world throws at
us to bring him back and as we're set to depart you'd leave
him lifeless. What's purposed in that?"
"What was tried?" John asked, watching E writhe atop the
spattered car. "Tell me-!"
My anger flared at the tone of my husband's demand, rage
all the more intensed for being infused with my guilt rising
for being attracted to E as he sang. "A kiss he wanted. A
childgame. I tossed and unweaponed, and as I readied to
haul him out the police showed. They hurt me, as you see.
He despoiled my dress, no more."
"You're truthing?" John asked; I'd never seen him so
nervefrayed.
"I'd lie to you?" I shouted. "Supplant anger with logic,
John. A quick return's essentialled. Backups'll follow to see
what's ensued here." Glancing round to see if other police
were arriving I saw the cars parked amid desecrated graves
and policemen's pulped husks; the searchlights whitened
the woods, appearing them as a photo negative, as a forest
of bones. "Forgive me for hitting," I said. "Something
needed doing. I adhocked."
"Forgiven," he sighed, lying; he lied so infrequently as to
give himself immediately away. It was ungatherable at that
moment whether he falsehooded at will or sans consciousness. It frightened me that John was so uncontrolled; having
been commanded not to act upon his slightest desires, he now appeared willing to revel in his deepest. "Is he viabled?"
John asked, as if having only come upon E, and expressing
the polite curiosity gentility demanded. I circled back to
where our charge lay bleeding, approximating life.
"Elvis," I asked, trying to find an unwounded spot so that
I might touch him, and comfort as I could.
"Take me home," he whispered, mumbling as if his
tongue was too swollen to suitably articulate.
"Can you move?"
"Don't know," he said, seeming to fade. "Who are you
people?"
"Why did you hurt my wife?" John asked, staying his actions, lowtoning as if to seem capable of lesser harm.
"Back!" I said, shouting at my husband.
"You killed those cops," said E. "The Feds. They shot you
and you got up."
"I know how to fall," John said, monotoning as before.
"You're not human," E said. "Are you?"
"Human as any," I said.
"You're Dero-"
"From down below," John said, nodding; he'd evidently
overheard E's earlier recounting. Raising his hand, he traced
his thumbedge around E's swollen lids as if marking the
orbits for an anatomy class. "What beautiful eyes."
"Stop it!" I slapped John's hand away; it hurt overmuch to
realize that, at least for the moment, I could no longer trust
him not to do harm. "We're not Dero," I told E. "Pay him
no mind."
"You are," he said. "I know you are. What are you gonna
do with me-?"
"Take you home," I said. "Our home." He wailed, shouting through the night. Carefully sliding my hands beneath
his back, I readied to move him; a voice furred with static
blared from the police car's radio.
"Car 43, come in," the voice said. "Car 43. Please respond, Car 43. Over."
"Time to blow," I said, struggling to raise E without damaging him further. "Rapido, John. Engage the device and
let's home it."
"Point of emergence's preferable for transferral back, as
told," John said, assisting me, supporting E's deadweight as
he hoisted him. "We'll make New York by tomorrow night."
"We're transferring here if abled," I said. "Not a moment
longer here."
"I like this world, Iz," he said. "And the in-car device's
emergency sole-"
"All cars, please respond. Car 43-"
"We're emergencied," I said, helping John to guide E's
bonebroken form into the back of our car; after certifying
that his feet were out of the way I shut the door, securing our
prisoner.
"We'll need distance, and a matching road," he said,
wheeling himself as I ran to the front. "It's unassurable
where we'll come out if we transfer from here." Rising in the
distance was a long, steady whine; the sirens distinguished
themselves as they drew nearer.
"They're surrounding," I said. "Come on, John--
But before he did anything he kissed me again; I pushed
him away from me, saying nothing, wanting nothing less
than loving so long as we might still escape. "AO," he said,
pressing the starter, engaging the engine. "Iz-"
"What?"
"I understand, Iz," he said. "You'll tell me, in time." My
husband's condition of paranoiac insecurity was gathering
greater strength as it momentumed, and I said nothing,
estimating my protestations would only assure him that I
belied all truth. The sirensound neared; nothing yet showed
in the rearview. He ran his hand along the dash until he
found the Alekhine's red button.
"Press it, John. Let's away."
I eyeshut, desiring of blinding myself against that midworld nothingness, trusting that I would never know if our transferral was unsuccessful. My ears continued to gather
sounds of insect and siren, and when I opened my eyes I saw
the sharp-shadowed woods, and the field, and groundbound
red flashes speeding toward us in the distance. "It's lemoned," my husband said. "No go."
"I've something to use-"
"Floor yourself, Iz."
As I wedged myself beneath the dash I felt for my purse;
remembered as I found it that E had dumped the contents
while taking my money. John shifted the car into drive and
spun the wheel; from my viewpoint I was unable to tell where
he was aiming us. I ran my fingers through my debris, shoving aside E's valise, trying to find the compactJudy had given
me.
"Ready yourself, Iz. We'll have to smash them head on.
That'll hash the leads-"
"They'll be shooting, John," I said, rummaging through
tissues, pens and pillbottles; farragoes of makeup never
wanted, never used. "The glass'll give." Nothing I touched
held the right shape; I thrust my hand beneath the front
seat, finding naught but additional clutter so well as E's
magazines. "Drive us away from them, not toward."